All Forum Posts by: Jonathan V.

Any update?

Original plans = pretty much gone.

We spent more in these areas than we initially thought:
-Open floor plan redesign
-House rewiring
-Windows
-roof leak

However I did make one good mistake. And that was under-pricing the house. It's going to turn out much nicer than we expected (from what we can tell) and the sales price should be about 5k higher than our first estimate.

All in all, we initially thought, best case scenario:
Purchase Price = $16,500
Renovation (labor materials etc)= $30,000
Holding Costs = $3,000
Total = $49,500

Turns out it's looking closer to:
Purchase Price = $16,500
Renovation = $37,500
Holding Costs = $7,000
Total = $61,000

Or 23% over budget total.

That doesn't include a realtor fee or closing costs for buyer.

Sales price will likely be in the 75-80k range.

Here's the progress to date with pics of before, during renovation, and current; three months in, another month to go.

http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii132/bigbadjonv/new%20and%20old/?albumview=slideshow

Thanks for the ideas. We can't run things on the wall w/o the window (the right if you are looking at the picture) as that has the only entry to the back foyer/mudroom/laundry room.

I don't have exact dimensions on hand but I believe the wall is about 14-16 ft' wide.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii132/bigbadjonv/outlineofhouse.png

We are gutting the kitchen and the bathroom, everything will be new.

Here is a picture of everything gutted in living/dining/kitchen

Here is what the kitchen will look like. (This isn't final but somewhat like this)

We aren't sure of the layout, we are thinking between these two ideas:

Anyways, that's where we are. All the underneath stuff will be taken care of as well. The budget has definitely ballooned "a bit". My wife and I have said since the beginning that if we break even we will be happy as we've wanted to do this for a long time.

Keep the comments coming.

If anyone has a vote on which kitchen layout to do, let me know, we are having problems deciding.

http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii132/bigbadjonv/House%20purchase/Some%20Demo%20work%20done/?albumview=slideshow

Pictures of the house after some demo work has been done.

edit: redid link

Sorry, try this:

http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii132/bigbadjonv/comparable/?albumview=slideshow

I should have pictures later today or tomorrow of demo work. We took plenty, it's just my wife stayed in the town with the demo and camera and I had to come back for work.

Demo is coming along, line of credit is all setup, and we've got all the plans mapped out. (for now)

When I post pictures of demo work I'll explain what we are doing to the house.

We also went and saw the inside of the house here: http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/i...view=slideshow

We also had the realtor listing that house who is a family friend of my wife's come in and look at ours.

The comparable had issues getting financed I talked about earlier. One of the issues they'd ran into is peeling paint on windows, and, unfortunately it looks like we are going to have to replace all the windows in our house (~15). (You were right Jeff) So that's going to be another $2500-3000. My contractor can do all the labor so hopefully he can find time to do that in conjunction with other projects.

The comparable also had really really bad flooring, it looks fine in those pictures, but it's all dinged to hell and very very weak in spots. There is no subfloor either in the comparable. Their carpet is pretty terribad and honestly our's will have 10x the finish when we are done.

She said our's would sell much faster with the fireplace. Our bedrooms are literally almost 1.5x bigger as well.

The wife is picking out windows and interior doors/frames/jambs this morning.

It may be powderpost beetles also, the smaller holes look like exit holes. Call a pro.

Hey! I'd love to come but I'm working late until the end of April. (I'm a CPA and it's tax season)

Do you have a mailing list I can join or anything? I'm definitely interested in joining the group.